


and cover it with lipstick

by lazyfish



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Actually I Do Make the Rules and the Rules Are Everyone is Trans :), Everyone Is Trans and I Don't Make the Rules, Multi, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:47:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22773586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyfish/pseuds/lazyfish
Summary: Hunter goes makeup shopping with his partners, and starts thinking about... things.
Relationships: Leo Fitz/Lance Hunter/Bobbi Morse/Jemma Simmons
Comments: 11
Kudos: 24
Collections: Marvel Polyship Bingo 2020





	and cover it with lipstick

Hunter had learned exactly one thing in over a year of following his partners into makeup stores: lipsticks had bloody weird names. Actually, most makeup products did, but lipsticks seemed to be the worst of the worst, and he hadn’t a clue why.

“Unicorn Tears?” Hunter asked, reading the label on the tube Jemma was swatching on the inside of her arm. The lipstick shimmered a color halfway between lilac and baby blue, but didn’t look like unicorn tears. Hunter was pretty sure horses couldn’t cry - why could unicorns? And why were their tears purple?

“It’s just a name, dear,” Jemma said, replacing the lipstick and picking up the next one.

“Va Va Voom!?” Hunter huffed. “That doesn’t even give you any information!” At least unicorn tears evoked an image, even if Hunter’s imagination had been far off the mark. His idea of va-va-voom did not involve Jemma wearing any lipstick at all - or anything else for that matter.

“Do you want to wait outside?” Jemma asked patiently, just as she did every time he started complaining too much about the strange makeup product names.

“No,” Hunter pouted, stepping closer to her. He didn’t like being in Sephora, but he liked being left out even less. Besides, he needed to know what color Jemma eventually picked out, since there was a good chance he’d end up wearing it smudged on his cheek or his mouth.

“That’s what I thought,” Jemma said, reaching up to pat his cheek. “Can I borrow your arm? I’ve run out of space on mine.” Jemma had already swatched two dozen lipsticks, none of which had caught her attention. Hunter didn’t know why she was insistent on needing a new one, but he also knew better than to question Jemma Simmons.

When she uncapped the next lipstick, Hunter offered his forearm for Jemma to test on. The lipstick was actually a rather fetching color, even if the name - Pillow Talk - didn’t evoke the taupey-purple on his skin.

“Hmm,” Jemma said, considering. “Do you think this would look good on me?”

“Everything looks good on you,” Hunter responded reflexively. Jemma could make even the most outrageous colors look amazing. Sometimes he swore she and Bobbi were competing to see which one of them could wear the more ridiculous makeup and still get laid, but mostly he was just thankful his girlfriends were so willing to explore and express themselves.

“I think I’ll get it, then.” Jemma capped the tester lipstick and pulled one of the tubes available for purchase out of the display. “Can you go wrangle Bobbi and Fitz? I really don’t know why Fitz thinks he needs more bronzer.”

“Same reason you think you need more lipstick and Bobbi needs more eyeshadow,” Hunter answered with a smile. He pressed a quick kiss to Jemma’s cheek before departing to find his other wayward lovers.

\---

“Bob? Can I ask you a dumb question?”

Hunter and Bobbi were alone in the bedroom together. Fitz and Simmons had swung by the lab to finish “one quick thing”, but of course it hadn’t turned out to be one thing, or quick at all. Hunter was glad for the privacy, though, especially given the stupidity of his question.

“Go for it.” Bobbi finished wrapping a towel around her hair before sliding into bed beside Hunter.

“When did you know you weren’t a boy?”

Bobbi blinked. She obviously hadn’t expected that question out of all of the ones he could ask. Hunter hadn’t pushed any of his partners to tell him much about their experience being trans - he had accepted a long time ago it was something they all shared but he would never understand.

“I guess… I never felt like a boy. Everyone told me I was, but it never sunk in.” She shrugged. “I didn’t think I was a girl until I learned about transgender people and I got to actually imagine myself as something other than what I already was.”

“So it didn’t have anything to do with wanting to do girly things? Like wearing lipstick?”

“Well, what we see as girly kind of depends on who we are. How we’re raised. I mean, didn’t your dad think…?”

“I was girly cuz I wanted to have sex with men? Yeah, he did.” Hunter stared down at his hands. “But there was a lot about sexuality he didn’t understand.”

“I know.” Bobbi scooched closer to him. “Any reason you ask?”

“Just thinking.” Hunter lifted his shoulder up in a cautious half-shrug. He understood a lot of things, but he didn’t understand why the idea of putting on Jemma’s lipstick made his stomach twist and flip in an unfamiliar, uncomfortable way. It wasn’t exactly the bad kind of uncomfortable, though, and he didn’t know how to express any of that in words.

“Okay.” Bobbi leaned over to brush a kiss on his cheek. “I’m here if you want to talk about anything. You know that, right?”

“Course,” Hunter said gruffly. And he did know - he just had a lot more thinking to do.

\---

“Hold still,” Fitz huffed.

Hunter couldn’t respond, because his boyfriend was putting on his lipstick and if Hunter talked, the lipstick would surely go everywhere.

“There.” Fitz capped the lipstick with a flourish, then ran his thumb under Hunter’s bottom lip, presumably to clean up whatever mess had been left by their combined inexperience.

“How does it look?” Hunter asked, shifting nervously.

Fitz tangled Hunter’s fingers with his. “You look wonderful.” He leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on the tip of Hunter’s nose. “Just like you always do.”

“This isn’t something I always do, though,” Hunter muttered in return. The lipstick was one thing, but Fitz had also talked him into silvery eyeshadow to complement the purple color of his lips. The only reason he hadn’t also been conned into wearing bronzer or blush was because it would get stuck in his beard, and Fitz liked Hunter’s stubble too much to make him shave.

“You don’t have to show the girls.”

“I think I want to.” Hunter cleared his throat. “I still look like me?”

“Of course you look like you,” Fitz said, mouth twisting in a small frown. “Makeup doesn’t change that.”

“Bugger.” Hunter’s head lolled forward onto Fitz’s shoulder. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say.”

Fitz ran his fingers through the tangle of Hunter’s hair. “You’re alright.”

“Would you still love me even if I wasn’t me?”

“I don’t…?”

“I mean… If I wasn’t a man.” That was the only conclusion he could reach after examining all his twisted feelings - that somehow, the lipstick had been the key to realizing he was more than the label he had accepted his whole life.

“Of course I would. We all would,” Fitz said, curling his hand into the soft hairs at the base of Hunter’s skull.

“I’m not saying I’m not. Just that I don’t know.” There was still a lot of research he needed to do - research Hunter was sure his partners would be willing to help with, once he got around to forming a more coherent explanation of what he was going through.

“That’s alright. These things take time.” Of course Fitz would know what the right thing to say was. He had been through this all before.

Speaking of time - an insistent knock sounded on the door.

“Please tell me Hunter still has lips!”

“He does!” Fitz called back, smirking a little at Bobbi’s concern. “Ready?”

“Ready.” Hunter answered.

So maybe things were a bit more confusing than he anticipated stepping into the makeup store three days ago. But for now, all the lipstick had to be was just that - lipstick.


End file.
